Disney's Cinderella...
Jan. 19th, 2013 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatIs a very oddly told tale. And an incredibly beautiful piece of animation - considering no computers and all the cells were individually drawn, a feat.
But it is told mainly through the points of view of mice, birds, and the Prince's father. Cinderella and her Prince are sort of on the periphery. In fact 60% of the film is the mice trying to avoid the evil Stepmother's nasty fat cat Lucifer. The animals don't really talk though, well except for the mice.
The romance is dreamlike...told through lullaby like songs. But the main focus is on the comedic characters of the Prince's father, the King who wants grandchildren and his aide de camp, and the
Cinderella's pet mice who will do anything to help her.
It's so odd.
A clip:
An aside on Aladdin...Jonathan Freeman's voice is bit similar to Jeremy Irons in the Lion King...and Irons apparently has made a career of playing slinky voiced villains.
But it is told mainly through the points of view of mice, birds, and the Prince's father. Cinderella and her Prince are sort of on the periphery. In fact 60% of the film is the mice trying to avoid the evil Stepmother's nasty fat cat Lucifer. The animals don't really talk though, well except for the mice.
The romance is dreamlike...told through lullaby like songs. But the main focus is on the comedic characters of the Prince's father, the King who wants grandchildren and his aide de camp, and the
Cinderella's pet mice who will do anything to help her.
It's so odd.
A clip:
An aside on Aladdin...Jonathan Freeman's voice is bit similar to Jeremy Irons in the Lion King...and Irons apparently has made a career of playing slinky voiced villains.
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no subject
Date: 2013-01-20 04:18 am (UTC)There's class privilege and there's magic privilege. If you have neither, you're stuck.
Eh - this post wasn't about the message in Cinderella
Date: 2013-01-20 01:50 pm (UTC)Keep in mind this was done in the 1940s.
The message? Not interesting to me and wasn't focused on as a kid anyhow - never was a princess fan, thought the whole dream a bit silly.
And every time any one sees this movie online they go on about what you always see in Cinderella.
BUT...what I was commenting on above - was the majority of the film is well like a Sylvester and Tweety Bird cartoon. LOL!
Such as the mice avoiding the cat - which is 66-70% of the movie. The whole fairy godmother/princess bit is really just 30% of the movie - which is quite odd. It lasts a mere few seconds.
In future representations...the focus is on Cinderella who wants to be a princess and the romance with the prince.
In this one - it's on the mice and animals and their desire to get back at their nasty head mistress - the evil Stepmother, and the Prince's battle with his father - who wants him to wed.
Also the animation at that time is quite beautiful and interesting, also a tad...dreamlike.
Re: Eh - this post wasn't about the message in Cinderella
Date: 2013-01-20 03:46 pm (UTC)I can't say I'm much a fan of the early Disney films; mostly due to the limitations of the tech, a lot of them come off as incredibly dark and dreary. Just look at the backgrounds from Cinderella or Alice in Wonderland as compared to even the Jungle Book or Robin Hood. Very dark colors, very sombre tone, and the pacing is much slower overall. The company did a lot of impressive, pioneering things for animation, but a lot of the films seem odd in hindsight. I actually recently watched Robin Hood again, a film I adored as a kid, but as an adult I realize there is a LOT of recycled animation, looping animation, and other shortcuts (makes sense, as apparently Disney was not doing so well financially in the 70's) and the pacing of the movie itself is really strange and kind of jarring.
I'm sure much of this is my own bias, though-- I hit the Disney age of childhood right as the Little Mermaid and Lion King were coming out, and the Disney Renaissance began. I did see many of the earlier films too, but the ones that were foremost in my attention were the films of the 90's, and it's hard to get past my childhood nostalgia to look at them objectively.
Re: Eh - this post wasn't about the message in Cinderella
Date: 2013-01-20 09:43 pm (UTC)In the 1940s and 1950s...they were graduating from black and white to technocolor. Disney was amongst the first to actually use color in their films and tv series. I remember as a kid, about 5 or 6 at the time, and this was in the 1970s, being told that we were getting our first "color" tv to watch the Wonderful World of Disney, which at that time used "techno-color".
The soft pastel colors, the soft blurred lines of early cell animation, which was done entirely by hand. 100s, 1000s of carefully drawn cells.
As opposed to today - where people quickly do it by computers. It's rather thrilling.
I think you are right however...that the focus on the animals is the graduation from shorts, such as Mickey Mouse and Donald, to feature length films with humans. It's rather telling that many of the early animated films had talking animals in them...often as the story-tellers.
My favorite film as a child was Robin Hood. (I never quite understood my mother's love of Cinderella. Snow White was completely lost on me.
But Robin Hood, The Aristocrats, Jungle Book, Mary Poppins, and Sleeping Beauty - were sort of cool. But at that time my favorite cartoon was Kimba - the template for the Lion King.)
I've since re-watched these films, and find them sorely lacking in comparison to BRAVE (in theme, story, and animation), although I will state Cinderella, Lady and the Tramp, Pinnochio, and Snow White still have the astonishing beauty of that early blurred line soft cell animation.
Re: Eh - this post wasn't about the message in Cinderella
Date: 2013-01-20 07:36 pm (UTC)Re: Eh - this post wasn't about the message in Cinderella
Date: 2013-01-20 09:44 pm (UTC)LOL
Date: 2013-01-20 05:53 pm (UTC)First of all this film is a classic, it is a treasure. The music is good, the art is great, and no one should miss out on seeing this. I love this film (but I was really young and really scared when the Stepmother drank the potion and turned into the old Crone!).
Second it is based on an old tradition fairy tale that everyone should be familiar with. You can hardly even discuss a lot of literary tropes if you are ignorant of most Fairy tales.
Third if someone is THAT politically correct that they cannot accept something which is from a different era (so I guess they are throwing out all the literary and film classics?) then they should use these things as teaching moments for their own kids. Of course it wouldn't work because the kids will see where the fun and beauty is, and know that Mom is really a Debbie downer.
Re: LOL
Date: 2013-01-20 10:15 pm (UTC)Yes, although to be fair, I idiotically waited to add the disclaimer until after I got comment.
I just wanted to discuss the cool animation and narrative structure of the film, sigh. ;-) People can be frustratingly uncooperative at times, can't they? Sometimes You just want to smack them. I'm restraining myself at the moment - because no good can come of smacking - even of the verbal variety.
Learned that the hard way.
Although honestly, where are the cat's right's enthusiasts?
but I was really young and really scared when the Stepmother drank the potion and turned into the old Crone!).
Eh...that's Snow White. I think you blurred the two films in your head? Understandable. They have similar animation styles and were released around the same time. Cinderella, Snow White, Lady and the Tramp, Alice in Wonderland, Pinnochio, and Fantasia, all have that similar soft cell animation and classical music - or music that has a symphonic sound, which was of true of the 1940s.
Then...all of a sudden the animation changed, and we got sharper lines - like in Sleeping Beauty, Robin Hood, the Jungle Book, Sword in the Stone,
The Aristocrats, The Rescuers...and the songs were catchier tunes, more pop style, less symphonic, and the lines less blurred.
Re: LOL
Date: 2013-01-20 10:32 pm (UTC)Personally I am all about those early Disney films: the painterly artwork, the music, the stories they picked (scarier and more interesting IMO) were all awesome, and I never get tired of seeing them. In fact I just DVRed Alice in Wonderland today.
I was too old to enjoy the later ones: I didn't like the artwork or the songs...
And although we could say that that was because I was older, but in fact my parents were as impressed with those earlier ones as I was. The later ones just seemed too cartoony and aimed at children, instead of being more universal and cinematic like the earlier ones. Of course that is just my opinion.
Re: LOL
Date: 2013-01-20 11:06 pm (UTC)As a child I loved the Robin Hood film. As an adult, I prefer the films prior to it - as did my mother, who loved Cinderella (it's her favorite), and she loved it for the same reasons you do - the painterly artwork (which were all individually painted as one might paint an actual painting), the classical music and the stories.
It's startling how much better the earlier films are from a purely "technical" perspective. Even the never seen "Song of the South" due to its racial overtones...has that feel to it. (Song of the South has not been seen since the 1970s and was controversial - due to its portrayal of race in the old South, and the brewer rabbit tar baby stories. You think people get upset over Cinderella, from a politically correct angle - just let them see Song of the South. Disney was not know for his..well, let's just say he was anti-semitic and racist, and leave it at that. He was a creator that I didn't really want to know all that much about.)
Of the newer stuff - Brave blows me away the most in how it is animated. Beautiful beyond belief.
Re: LOL
Date: 2013-01-21 12:07 am (UTC)Even during the 1960s people didn't reject those things as prejudiced (you actually had to be prejudiced/discriminating against 'Negros' to be labeled prejudiced in those days). Now days people have to be more careful... where even a movie like 'the Help' can seem racially insensitive while it is trying to act all liberal and stuff!
I think you're right, it was probably in the 1970s that these things were rejected. I think that even Dumbo was considered in questionable taste because the Crows were a little too 'black' in style & song.
Like you I also adore Haruki Mange films (Spirited Away remains my very favorite), and a lot of the Pixar movies have been brilliant. Did you see 'How To Train A Dragon'? It was huge fun and had some very creative artwork. I am glad so much creative/beautiful/interesting animation is being done now.
Re: LOL
Date: 2013-01-21 05:59 pm (UTC)Oh yes, enjoyed it as well.
I think you're right, it was probably in the 1970s that these things were rejected. I think that even Dumbo was considered in questionable taste because the Crows were a little too 'black' in style & song.
I'd say the 80's. I saw Song of the South in the movie theater in 1975 or thereabouts, and my parents had no problems with it - found it actually fairly progressive at the time. But in the 1970s, we were still dealing with segregation issues back then. Dumbo I also saw in the movie theater around 1971. Those films didn't make it to television until the 1980s.
Political Correctness and media criticism started coming into vogue in the late 80s, when I was college. It's not a bad thing - because of that increased trend and the awareness - the television and film landscape changed, we have more colorblind casting choices, more gender blind casting choices and less institutionalized and systematic discrimination.
A film like BRAVE would never have been made when I was a kid or when you were a kid. But How to Train Your Dragon would have. The fact Pixar, owned by Disney, did BRAVE - when 68 years ago they would only have done Cinderella - is proof attitudes can change.
Media criticism has in a way paved the way for that. And the fact that young women and men in college courses are questioning what they watch, and not taking it face value - demonstrates that change will continue - they will go on to create art reflecting that increased awareness and understanding. It's rather inspiring in a way.
I think I'm more interested in seeing how the artwork has changed than in condemning what occurred before or wiping it off the slate. Because it's not that simplistic. There's good and bad within it.
Without it - you can't see where we came from, how we have changed, and why. Media after all is a reflection of the society we are living in, and our cultural values of the time period we are in. I think often media critics shy away from criticizing the source of the reflection, instead they just critique the reflection. Cinderella for example is an expression of a time period - where men were going to war, dying in war, and women were nurses, widows, domestics, factory workers. Is it flawed, yes. Are the messages warped, yes. But so is Buffy. So is Jane Austen's novels.
Re: LOL
Date: 2013-01-21 06:24 pm (UTC)But back in the 1960s it was simpler in that you were either for or against integration. And hiring African American performers on TV shows or movies was just better than never hiring them and pretending they don't exist. I think (I could be wrong) that Disney felt that Song of the South was celebrating African American history and culture... at least that is how my parents took it, back in the day.
Times and attitudes change, but I would never throw away the art even if it reflects a more prejudiced time... Just as I don't reject poetry/opera/painting etc done by artists who were themselves prejudiced/faulty people.
Re: LOL
Date: 2013-01-22 01:34 am (UTC)I think so much is based on the context of the time period. In the 1960s and 1970s...colorblind casting was sort of rare. If persons of color were cast - their race was constantly referred to.
Song of the South...could be read more than one way, depending on your point of view - much like Huckleberry Finn. At the time...it was actually fairly progressive. Now, it comes across as racist as it may well have to various people back then.
The story was about an old man, Uncle Remus, who told morality tales to a bunch of children black and white. It wasn't until I read social criticism of it years later that I saw the racial undertones. As a six-seven year old child, I merely saw an old man telling morality stories or parables about animals. It's not all that different than Cinderella. I saw it as a tale about a bunch of animals who help a poor girl obtain her dreams, by working together - it wasn't until years later that I saw the other message - my focus was on the mice defeating Lucifier the cat - when I saw it as a child.
I think people forget that they bring their own perception to the work.
We interact with it.
Gone with the Wind - same deal, it is quite racist actually. But as a child I just saw a romance. As an adult I saw the racism.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-21 03:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-21 06:05 pm (UTC)And there's a great deal of focus on the comical animals.
It's also interesting to note that the live action/animated film "Enchanted" appears to be a bit of ...a tongue in check metanarrative on Sleeping Beauty/Snow White and Cinderella by Disney. They sort of make fun/mock what they did in the prior films, complete with a squeaky chipmunk, and an evil Stepmother/Queen/Fairy.
The animated style of Sleeping Beauty is so drastically different than the prior to films - it reminds me of stained glass actually in how they painted it. Sharp angles and vivid color - I think I remember seeing a documentary on it once - where they actually stated that they were going for a feeling of stained glass while making it - which is interesting.